


Numbers

by upriserseven



Series: C-53 (or, maybe, Home) [6]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: F/F, Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25350325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upriserseven/pseuds/upriserseven
Summary: Carol has known (and loved) you since before you were born. She likes to remind you of this pretty often, sometimes when she’s sentimental and sometimes when she’s childish and trying to prove a point. Carol Danvers loved you, Monica Rambeau, before you even were Monica Rambeau.
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Maria Rambeau & Monica Rambeau, Carol Danvers & Monica Rambeau, Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau
Series: C-53 (or, maybe, Home) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1305899
Comments: 22
Kudos: 88





	Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, uh hey there sports fans. I wrote 5 parts to this series in 2019 and then I waited 14 months to write the 6th and final part! This also definitely means it's the last part of a series that you haven't read because it's way near the end of the tag/you have read but you'd forgotten about, so I would absolutely suggest you (re)read the other parts before this one. 
> 
> Honestly I just got very in my head about it and so I decided to just not write the thing. Until today, when I decided the thing wanted to be written. It's short, but I didn't want to force it. Initially this last part was just going to cover about a bajillion years but then I decided I just wanted to leave things loving and hopeful and let you decide all the good things that happen to this little family after this.

Carol has known (and loved) you since before you were born. She likes to remind you of this pretty often, sometimes when she’s sentimental and sometimes when she’s childish and trying to prove a point. Carol Danvers loved you, Monica Rambeau, before you even were Monica Rambeau. Back when your name was still unclear, back when your mom was freaking out over the teeny tiny embryo inside her, back when you were just starting to begin. That’s how long Carol’s loved you, she tells you, often gleefully. 

You spent the first five years of your life basically attached to her. You followed her around, you were carried on her shoulders, on her hip, in her arms, wherever she could manage you. You listened to her talk about stars until you knew those words better than anything you were learning in your classes. You danced with her in the kitchen, you cuddled with her and your mom while you watched movies or when you couldn’t sleep, you ate pancakes with her on Saturday mornings. She read you stories and got up with you in the night and took care of you when you were sick. She made your mom coffee and she made your mom smile. That’s what you remembered, and that’s what you held on to.

You were five when your mom came home without her. You were six before you had Saturday morning pancakes again. Almost seven before you and your mom danced in the kitchen. Eight when you were finally allowed to wear her jacket, instead of just looking at it, hanging on the back of your mom’s bedroom door, exactly where Carol had left it. (Eight when you were relegated to looking again, after the ketchup incident.) By the time you were ten, Carol’s name was used around the house a little more freely, with a little less pain (but maybe a little less frequency.) Auntie Carol was a memory, but a nicer one now. There were only a handful of photographs of her on display, but you were allowed your own box that stayed in your closet, and it was a lot more fun to look at them, and remember the stories behind them, than it once was. 

It was when you were eleven that she came back, glowing and firey and cool as all hell. Not quite the Carol you’d known before, but not different either. Her smile was exactly as you remembered it, and it took a little longer for everybody else, but Carol slipped back into your brain like she’d never even been gone, and you weren’t even worried when she had to fly away, because she’s _Carol_ , so she’s always going to come back for you. 

You can’t even say which ages you are when she comes back, because you’re all of them. She’s back at least twice a year, and it’s great having your moms together again, but you can always sense when something is off. You’re sixteen when you think maybe things feel tense, but then Mama stays for almost a week, and comes to your presentation. She watches you win a state-wide competition, and she’s beaming (although not literally), and your heart aches a little that this isn’t your everyday, but you’re glad it’s your today. 

That same visit, she talks to you about communication devices, about giving you and your mom ways to get in touch with her when she’s across the galaxies, and by the time you’re seventeen, you have one. You can write messages to her, and she writes back. Your mom's does some kind of super advanced holographic video chat, so sometimes the three of you get to talk and sometimes you get to steal it away for a little while and update her on all parts of your life. You didn’t realise you’d been holding back during her visits, but it probably makes a lot of sense that you’d been trying to not waste any time with her. 

It doesn’t make it any less exciting when she comes back again, even though you just spoke to her two days ago. She has the dumbest, most Carol Danvers grin on her face and excitedly exclaims that she’s staying for a month. You catch the sheepish look she shoots at your mom before saying “if you’ll have me?” and your mom plays it cool but you can tell she’s super excited, too. You can feel that you’re all a little nervous about it, and that’s probably normal because a week is the longest you’ve spent with Carol in over ten years, but it’s also completely absurd because she’s your Mama and she’s your mom’s… wife? Girlfriend? Something. She’s your mom’s _person_ and you think that maybe what they’re really worried about is that a month is more than enough time to get settled into a routine, and to have life feel normal again. 

You’re very aware, all of you, that you’re going to be moving out and heading away to college soon, and you think maybe that’s why she wants to get the time in. You try not to wonder what it’s going to be like when you do move away, but think maybe you’ll not-so-casually mention that you and your mom have already started talking about when you’ll visit home, and when she’s going to visit you at school. You want to make sure Mama knows to come at those times, if she can. You know that they’ll probably want some time alone, too, but honestly, you’re always a little bit scared of losing Carol again, and you don’t want to have even less time with her just because you’re away. 

And Carol Danvers, ever the almost embarrassingly supportive mother (even before that’s what you called her), is gloriously and ridiculously excited for you to get to college, even if she makes faux-dramatic references to her baby growing up too fast and still, after all these years, claims you’re going to be too cool to want to hang out with her soon. You’re almost eighteen now and your Mama still thinks you’re going to outgrow her, which is the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. 

You’re right, maybe, to be nervous about her being home for a month, because it does feel a little weird for a while. It doesn’t really last, but for the first few days you keep expecting her to be gone in the morning. You’re worried about the end of this month, when you know the opposite will be true, and that you and your mom are going to be used to Carol’s presence, but she won’t be there. You don’t want to dwell on that. 

A month is such a long time, in the story of your visits from Mama, but it’s gone all too quickly and even though it hurts more than the end of any other visit, you wouldn’t trade it for anything because it’s given you more memories of pancakes and dancing in the kitchen than you even have space for in your brain. It’s great, having Carol back in the house, and it’s beautiful how seamlessly she fits back into your lives full-time, making a pot of coffee in the morning and going grocery shopping and being so normal that it’s easy to forget she’s the most powerful being in the universe. She helps you make decisions about school and gives you life advice that’s probably better than either of you realise and you think this is probably what life would’ve been like if Carol had never disappeared in the first place. 

So when she has to leave, it hurts, but the message you get telling you she’s returned safely and the Skrulls “barely even noticed she was gone” is a small comfort, and you wonder if maybe you’ll see her again sooner than anticipated. 

As always, you know your Mama better than anyone (besides probably your mom, but even she hadn’t caught on this time) and she turns up “to help” two weeks before your move-in date. It’s been less than three months since the last time you saw her, but you knew she wouldn’t be able to resist dropping you off at college and you’ve never been more thankful that your Mama still wants to try and embarrass you at every opportunity. You all know that once you arrive, she’s officially in Auntie Carol mode, but the drive there is just for the three of you so she sing-screams with you, and spends half the journey telling you how proud she is of you. She even brings you a gift from Talos, Soren and their daughter, but admits she’s not really sure what it is. She’d apparently felt it would be rude to ask, and claims she’ll report back one day, but you’re pretty sure you’ll have figured it out by then. 

Admittedly, your superpowered Mama does make move-in a lot easier. Your mom is strong and you guys would’ve been fine, but Carol moves half your stuff into the dorm in one trip, while you make sure nobody sees the woman carrying five boxes up four flights of stairs with ease. 

And it's funny, really, when your mothers leave later that day, because you're nervous about college, and you're sad to be losing out on Carol time, but mostly you feel so, so happy for them that maybe they'll get to have some time together. You think back to when your Mom first told you about them, when you were eleven, and you remember the tears she didn't let fall while she talked to you about how they've always had to be a secret. You know they still have to, that hasn't changed (and really, staying a secret just gets more and more important with time, now that Carol is... what she is), but maybe keeping the secret won't feel as hard when there's nobody around to keep it from. 

Still, you're confident that Mama will time her visits so she can see you too, and maybe it's just because you're growing up, but you're excited about that. You're hoping maybe you'll even get a chance to spend some time with her without your mom. Just a day, maybe, but you think that would be pretty awesome, actually. 

Carol has loved you since before you were born. She loves to tell you that. She considers it a major victory, but according to your Mom, the feeling was pretty mutual. So when Carol tries to win “who loves who more” contests, she's always reminded that you kicked for the first time when Carol was belting out a Heart song, or that when you kicked too much, Carol was the only one who could get you to calm down. She wins by default, you've decided, only because she was aware enough to know she loved you.  


Unpacking your dorm room means pinning up a few of your favourite family photos, ones that are just casual enough that you can reasonably say that the woman with you is your Auntie Carol. It also means opening a bag and finding Carol's jacket stuffed inside, and you're not even sure which one of them put it there, but you tuck it away neatly in your closet anyway, eighteen years old but still too nervous to even think about wearing it anywhere there might be ketchup. 

You've always known your family wasn't typical. You probably knew it when you were five, when other kids in your class had a dad, and you had an Auntie Carol. You definitely knew it when you were eleven, and Auntie Carol came back glowing, fighting aliens and heating tea kettles with her hands. You've known it ever since. You've known it your whole life, and you wouldn't trade it for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> If you leave a comment I may be inspired and write something again in another approximately 43 years so...


End file.
